WHAT IF YOU MET A KNIGHT?
From the What If You Met… series
by Jan Adkins & illustrated by Jan Adkins
“The Code of Chivalry was very sweet, but an ambitious knight went about whacking off arms and heads as often as possible.” In a similarly eye-opening follow up to What If You Met a Pirate? (2004), Adkins brushes aside common misconceptions about knights and knightly behavior, inviting readers to “Meet the Real Deal”—one Sir Guy of Wareham—and conducting a brisk tour of his administrative duties, along with glimpses of castle life and staffing, how to don armor, the course of the Crusades and like topics. Furnishing plenty of small figures in plate armor and other period dress, many playfully depicted within a stained glass window or on a long strip à la the Bayeaux Tapestry, the author dishes up a generalized but entertaining survey, with just a dash or two of gore, which will be snatched up by young squires and damsels. (Nonfiction. 10-12)